Building Skills for Independent Living

This is the 17th in an ongoing series featuring members of the Greater North Penn Collaborative for Health and Human Services. Another story will be published next month. For more information about the Collaborative, contact Ella Roush, Coordinator, ella@npcollab.org, or visit www.npcollab.org.

One evening, in the fall of 2012, Megan Rivera’s mother, Norma, received a call from a close friend. The friend, Ann, wanted to encourage Megan’s participation in a group that her son, Eric, had attended for years. A few weeks later, Megan was sitting in a socialization circle in the Recreation Hall at Variety Club. Initially her supervisors described her as ‘shy’ and ‘introverted’, terms that in the coming years would no longer be associated with Meg.

The Variety Club Camp & Developmental Center has been serving children with physical and developmental disabilities continuously since 1949 at its 88-acre campus in Worcester. The Vocational training program at Variety has been operating in its current form since the summer of 2008. Each camper spends two weeks at four different stations during the eight week summer program. The stations include woodshop, kitchen, cafe and outdoor crew. In the kitchen, campers work alongside the culinary staff, helping to prepare lunch for the entire camp, learning safe and sanitized food preparation, organization and cleaning skills. The cafe, while a smaller scale than the kitchen, gives these young adults an opportunity to see the retail side of a food service operation. Vocational students take orders, prepare snacks and run the cash register while developing quality socialization skills through customer interaction. In the woodshop, campers learn the value of working with their hands, building bird houses and wood sculptures to sell at the end of the summer. The outdoor crew works alongside the facilities employees, learning about what it takes to operate, clean and keep safe, a facility of Variety’s size.

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Norma, Megan’s mother, expressed the growth that she has seen in her daughter since her time with Variety Club’s Vocational Program. “As a parent, it is tough to know what your child’s interests may be in a work environment because they usually won’t have an idea until they try some different things. I am so grateful to be able to know what Megan might like to do in the future - work in a culinary setting - because she has had the opportunity to try so many things during her time at Variety.”

Norma also shared how shocked she was while cooking dinner on a recent evening, saying “Megan came into the kitchen and asked if she could help prepare the meal. Now, you need to understand, that has never been Meg. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She is really coming into her own and showing interest in new things all the time. It is so comforting as a mother to see this growth.”

The independence that has emerged in Megan Rivera is also unquestionable to her supervisors at work. As one said, “At first she was timid, unsure of herself at the cash register, more of an observer than anything. But it was amazing to watch how quickly she was able to break out of her shell and embrace the tasks at hand. We were so proud of her ability to adapt. She has been great to work with.”

Ultimately, the goal of Variety Club’s Vocational Program is to prepare young adults with disabilities for the realities of the working world. To instill independence and socialization skills is to leave young people with unlimited options for the future. Through this program, people like Megan Rivera can look forward with composure and confidence. What more could we want for our next generation of workers?

If you would like to support this program, please contact Jean Merkl at 610.584.4366 x 201 to discuss your ideas.

Other Greater North Penn Collaborative members that provide day-camp experiences for young people: